This invention relates to the field of personal cooling and the deployment of combined cooling apparatus and protective clothing garments, during clean-up of chemical warfare agents or other hazardous materials from a zone of contamination.
Air Force ground crew members wearing the military issue chemical warfare defense ensemble are subjected to significantly impaired body heat dissipation capability. The employment of this ensemble in warm or hot environmental conditions, as can be readily anticipated in a combat scenario, is in fact found to increase the thermal burden imposed on an aircraft ground crew member or other worker to the point that physical work performance is severely diminished or terminated. Although backpack and other personal cooling systems are known in the art and have been considered for use in this scenario, the heretofore available systems have been found to have a number of practical shortcomings which preclude their successful application in this and related use environments.
Several examples of prior art personal cooling systems are to be found in the U.S. Patent art; this art includes U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,762 of William Elkins et al, which discloses a personal temperature control system in which a heat exchange garment is connected to a heat exchange fluid source through use of quick release couplings. The Elkins et al patent also contemplates use of the heat exchanger apparatus by a plurality of individuals, each of which may have his own control display unit in order to individually regulate the temperature within his heat exchange garment. The Elkins et al patent also contemplates the use of quick disconnect couplings mounted on an immobile heat exchanger fluid apparatus.
The prior patent systems also include the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,024,730 of Richard L. Bell et al, which relates to a cooling and breathing system wherein warm-up of liquid oxygen or other liquefied breathable gas is accomplished in a heat exchanger employing the combination of cooling fluid heated by the body heat of an aircraft crewman combined with ambient air. The Bell et al system also contemplates the use of a pump and rapid disconnect fittings and indicates possible use of the invention to cool an individual working in a warm environment.
Also included in the prior patent devices are several single person cooling systems which are arranged to be borne by the user. Such systems are shown in the patents of A. P. Rybalko et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,869,871; Ernst Warncke et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,172,454: A. Pasterhack, U.S. Pat. No. 4,405,348; and J. R. MacDonald et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,447.
None of these prior cooling devices is found to be entirely suitable for use in the chemical warfare clean-up and other extended effort multi-person endeavors which are especially addressed by the apparatus and method of the present invention.